Next as to man's resurrection. The Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the _body_ must not be confused with that of the immortality of the _spirit_, discussed in Chapter VI., which is common to many religions, and is certainly not improbable. But two objections may be made to the resurrection of the body. The first is that it is _impossible_, since the human body decomposes after death, and its molecules may afterwards form a part of other bodies; so, if all men were to rise again at the same time, those molecules would have to be in two places at once. But the fallacy here is obvious, for the molecules composing a man's body are continually changing during life, and it is probable that every one of them is changed in a few years; yet the identity of the body is not destroyed. This identity depends not on the identity of the molecules, but on their relative position and numbers so that a man's body in this respect is like a whirlpool in a stream, the water composing which is continually changing, though the whirlpool itself remains. Therefore the resurrection need not be a resurrection of _relics_, as it is sometimes called. No doubt in the case of Christ it was so, and perhaps it will be so in the case of some Christians, only it _need_ not be so; and this removes at once the apparent impossibility of the doctrine. Secondly, it may still be objected that the doctrine is extremely _improbable_. And no doubt it seems so. But once more we have no adequate means of judging. Apart from experience, how very unlikely it would be that a seed when buried in the ground should develop into a plant; or that plants and trees, after being apparently dead all through the winter, should blossom again in the spring. Thus everything connected with life is so mysterious that we can decide nothing except by experience. And therefore we cannot say what may, or may not happen in some future state, of which we have no experience whatever. Indeed, if man's spirit is immortal, the fact that it is associated with a body during its life on this earth makes it not unlikely that it will be associated with a body of some kind during its future life. And that this body should be partly spiritual, and so resemble Christ's risen body, is again only what we should expect. Thus, on the whole, the doctrine of the Resurrection is certainly credible. (_E._) CONCLUSION. We have now examined the four great doctrines of Christianity, the others either following directly from these, or not presenting any difficulty. And though, as we have shown, not one of these doctrines can be pronounced _incredible_, yet some of them, especially those of the Incarnation and the Atonement, certainly seem _improbable_. This must be fully and freely admitted. At the same time, it is only fair to remember that this improbability is distinctly lessened by the three following considerations.